A view of Baker City, Oregon, from the perspective of the disenfranchised, and taken for granted citizens who live there. Critiques will be generally aimed at the powerful and self-serving folks who run this town, from the business people on Main Street, to the subsidized and catered-to flim-flams who take over our public assets and spaces while calling themselves "artists," to the monopoly electric "co-op" which steals from the poor to feed the rich, and the golf course which does the same.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

I
live just a few hundred feet from Churchill School in an older neighborhood over on the west side of
Baker City, Oregon. For years I have watched the neighborhood children head for
Churchill School, not to study there, but to be picked up and bused to other
schools in the city.In the
afternoon, the bus would drop them off at Churchill and they would disperse
back into the neighborhood. I never viewed the school as an eyesore, just more
of an embarrassment for, and a monument to, the irresponsible actions of the 5j
Board of Education.

What
is a school building really worth?

Those
of us who are fortunate enough to own property are advised to insure the
property for what it would cost to replace it because rising construction costs
guarantee that the replacement cost will be much more than what you paid for
it. I mean you have this home that serves your needs and you only paid $80,000
for it, but now it might cost two times that to replace it--Same with a school.

I
got to digging around to find relatively current, post recession building costs
for schools in Eastern Oregon and found that they are astronomically high, and
getting higher.A July 9, 2018
article by the Oregon School Boards Association, Unexpectedlysteep increases in construction expenses strain bond plans,
noted that prices were increasing rapidly:

"Scott
Rogers, Wenaha Group senior project manager, said a recent bid for an
education-related project in eastern Oregon came in about 25 percent over
budget. Some construction bid areas — including plumbing, electrical, concrete, masonry
and steel — were twice the cost per square foot as for a similar project a year
ago, he said. Rogers said tariff"s are wreaking havoc, particularly with
steel-related costs. He said a contractor told him that the market is so
volatile that an estimate older than 45 days is already obsolete. He said
contractors are bidding overtime equivalent rates for regular labor." ....

Rogers, who is
the Athena-Weston School Board chair and an OSBA Board member, said a school
built in Umatilla County in 2015 cost about $225 per square foot. By 2017 such
a project had risen to about $255 per square foot. A similar project Rogers is
working on now received bids of $318 per square foot.”

With
that information in hand, what is the likely replacement cost of Churchill
School? According to the Assessor's office information, Churchill School is
18,258 square feet in size.

I'm
not in construction, but it seems that at $255/sq. ft. it would be 255 X
18,258, which equals $4,655,790.00. That's a sizable chunk of change.

At
$318/sq. ft. it would be $318 X 18,258, which equals $5,806,044.00. Five
million, eight hundred and 6 thousand and forty four dollars!The school board originally sold it for
$205,000 and the Vegters bought it for $194,104 in May of this year. Not a bad
deal.

A
nagging question in the back of my mind of course, is why did the school
district sell it in the first place for so little money, and, given that the
original purchasers couldn't go through with their plans for it, why didn't
they buy it back when they saw school enrollment going back up?

I
asked this question in writing, along with several others, to Superintendent
Witty on August 22, a month ago, but he hasn't responded to the questions.

One
distinct possibility is that they had made other plans some time ago without
asking for the public’s approval. After all, they had already purchased
property where they want to build their new elementary school. The timely
purchase of the Churchill School by the Vegters in May served as a fait
accompli, which assured that the possibility of the district buying back
Churchill would no longer be available as a solution to our school's crowding
problems. In fact, Kevin Cassidy, chairperson for the 5j Board of Education,
and facilities committee member Aletha Bonebrake, enthusiastically supported
the Vetger's "visionary" commercial project. What a relief it must
have been to turn a monument to folly into a purported community asset while
guaranteeing it could no longer be used for the purpose for which it was built.

-------------

One
of the more interesting letters to the planning commission in support of the
Vegters using Churchill School, instead of the children it was built for, was
from hometown girl Ginger Savage, wife of the County Assessor, former bank
executive, former school board member, and now Executive Director of Crossroads
Carnegie Art Center. In the letter she was honest in admitting that she was on
the school board that sold off this valuable asset.

She
began her letter with the words:

"I
would like to offer my voice in support of the conditional use permit for
Churchill School to Brian and Corrine Vegter. Brian and Corrine bring a solid
plan to transform the derelict old school to life again providing a
small to mid size performance space, a much needed bike hostel,
appropriate limited residential housing for the Vegters to be onsite and to
manage the property." (emphasis added)

Golly,
how did that old school, which was originally a valuable public asset, become
"derelict" in the first place? Oh, that's right, she and the school
board got rid of this public asset that could have been put back into use, and
that now will cost millions to replace! Much needed bike hostel? I'm sure that
was on the top of every citizen's list for town improvements.

The
next paragraph was worthy of a 'gag-me-with-a-spoon' award:

"The
Vegters are the perfect example of the "artisan class" which communities
around the country are attracting to come to move to their cities.The artisan class looks at properties
like Churchill and sees opportunity and all the amazing ways they can transform
it into working and useful space. The artisans have the talent and abilities to
transform buildings. They see opportunity when others see a mess."

Ay
yi yi!!!!!OK, artists and
creative people are terrific, but do we elevate them above teachers, doctors
and other healthcare workers, biologists, social workers, engineers,
accountants, builders, electricians, plumbers, bakers, shopkeepers and clerks,
and all the other hard working people in our communities? Do we allow public
assets to be taken over by them because our leaders and the “artisan class” see
a mess and cannot see a school where a school obviously exists? Why do they
want to transform what was a working school into a residence and commercial
event center, hostel and artist colony in a residential neighborhood when what
we need are schools? Is that what we call civic-minded responsibility these
days?

And what is the "artisan class" anyway? We are
all artisans in one way or the other, but most of us are sensible enough to
know we won't be able to make a living at it. Been there, done that. When will
the proliferation of stick figures and welded scrap metal animals reach the
saturation point where the novelty ends? You can't eat art. Have they not heard
of starving artists?

Sorry, but I think it is just another how can I elevate my status thing. As
there are fewer satisfying employment opportunities, as resources become
depleted, and as robots take over our jobs, what do we do that will reward us
personally and bring us some form of social approval, while producing little of
intrinsic value except for those few people with money to burn in a society of
increasing inequality?

In her final paragraph, Ms. Savage brings up the new
theme that using an older school as a school just isn't an option:

"I
humbly implore you work with the Vegter's and make this work. If you, as the
planning commission, don't start planning for the needs to transform some of
our beloved old structures the only option will be demolition."

Demolition
is the only other option? Oh yes, of course! It couldn't possibly be purchased
for the use it was intended for because that would provide an alternative to
the $48 million school building plan currently being pushed by the elite.

Given the reality of the actual value of the
"artisan class," one wonders why our public assets are being taken
over by the artists and those in the middle and upper classes.The question is especially relevant
when those public assets and spaces could be used for early learning and the
after school care and tutoring of young people, including some art, of course.
Crossroads took over the Carnegie Library a long time ago and has a 30 year,
no-rent lease. That’s right, they pay nothing for the use of a public building.
The poor people of our community cannot afford the fees for classes and the
vast majority are not interested anyway. You would think the relatively well
off people who use this public facility, including those who are making a
living off it, could pay some rent to our city for it.Better yet, we could dump the arts
thing and use it as an early learning center for young children.

Monday, September 10, 2018

I
sent the following questions to Mr. Witty three weeks ago but have not
received a response as yet. I followed up a week later and he responded
that he was busy with the start of the school year which seemed
reasonable. I thought with school having started last week that I would
be getting a response, but still nothing. In my preface to the
questions I reminded Mr. Witty that a lot of us in Baker live in poverty
and that the elderly on Social Security do not get cost of living
raises that keep up with their actual cost of living. In other words,
that their primary expenses for medical
care, property taxes,
city utility charges and fees, home and auto insurance, etc., are going
up
faster than the cost of living raises granted by Social Security. Every
year we
sink deeper into impoverishment and the School bond will increase the
risk of some losing their homes or of not be able to meet the rent,
which is an existential threat. In fact, studies have shown that living
in poverty itself is an existential threat. All that said, I asked the
questions which can be found below.

Churchill School was sold by the school district in March of 2007

for $205,000. In the years since, as the building stood empty, the

district has been adding portables to the other schools to handle the

increasing number of students. The Vegters purchased the property for

their home and commercial ventures in May of this year for $194,104.

Both the planning department and the Planning Commission allowed
them to create commercial businesses in a medium density residential
area even though it subverted the development code. If the district had
bought it back at that price, they would have made a profit of $10, 896.00.
If they hadn't sold it in the first place, it could have been housing many
students. How short-sighted of them! Or was it intentional?

Anyway, here are some
questions pertaining to the $48 million bond issue that you, the school board,
and the BSD Long Range Facilities Planning Committee wish to impose on our
community. I use the word “you” kind of loosely below, but take it as meaning
the school board and the committee as well, but you [Mr. Witty] certainly seem to be a
prime mover of this proposal.

August
22, 2018

First question I and my
neighbors are wondering about:

Given that you and the committee have been
planning this since at least 3/2017, why didn’t the district just buy back
Churchill school, which recently sold for less than what the School Board
sold it for years ago, to provide additional classroom space with
facilities? It seems to me that keeping neighborhood schools could cut
down on busing costs, which will be increasingly important in the future
as energy per capita becomes more scarce and expensive. Corollary
Question: Did the committee in any way encourage or help arrange for the
school to be sold off to Vegter so it couldn’t interfere with the new
plans?

Other questions:

Why are you asking voters to approve a $48
million school bond when the Facilities Master Planning Committee thought
that “the most urgent needs for building improvements” were “estimated to
cost about $26.7 million?

Do the elite folks chosen for the BSD Long Range
Facilities Planning Committee in any way represent an actual cross section
of residents of Baker City? Wasn’t the fix in from the start in that they
were chosen because they could be counted on to support a big bond issue?
Do they have any understanding of what the socio-economic lives of poor
and regular folks are like and what this bond would do to them?

Why are there no poor people on the committee?
Are they just to stupid to contribute meaningful opinions on a grandiose
plan?

What is a 21st century learning environment,
and how will it improve outcomes? Are you going to transform the home
environment of lower income people so that their needs are met and they
will be more able to be receptive to education, or is this just a plan to
make wealthy residents feel that their kids are on a par with Portland?

The report talks about operational costs and
energy efficiency, so why are you proposing that walking-distance
neighborhood schools be abandoned in favor of a costly, energy hungry,
busing plan to transport children from the far reaches of Baker City to
Hughes Lanes on the north side? At risk of sounding like your grandfather
perhaps, I have to tell you that I walked long distances to my elementary
and junior high schools, and I suspect it was good for me.

When I was in Germany in 1970, people used and
took care of buildings several centuries old. Why is the committee
proposing to abandon them? Is sustainability not a goal of the school
district? Aren’t earthquake retrofit grants available?

How do you feel about the economic burden the
bond will put on the many poverty stricken people in Baker City? Do you
not foresee rising rents for poor renters and additional unbearable costs
for seniors already struggling on low fixed incomes? Are the elite folks
trying to drive the poor out of town?Are you familiar with the concept of gentrification and
are you and the committee in effect proponents of it???Are you willing to put myself and
others at risk of our losing homes in order to educate newcomers and
promote unnecessary population growth. I asked the last question to a
teacher two months ago and he seemed to be OK with that outcome. His
thinking was that it would attract new businesses, people and growth, and
well, if some of us who live here have to suffer, then so be it. Obviously
he hadn’t spent the years from 1950 to 2000 in Southern California to
watch it be destroyed by the kind of “growth” that he seeks, and he
obviously hadn’t read “Better Not Bigger” by Eben Fodor. As they say,
Be careful what you wish for.”

The committee “discussed economic and community
development considerations.” What were there conclusions as to the effect
of the bond on economic and community development?

Recognizing the stressful financial difficulties that
poverty stricken seniors face, some municipalities and, at least in the
past, some states, relieve poor elderly people from property taxes and
school taxes. Given the competitive meanness infecting the country since
the 80s, such relief has been disappearing and now tax relief goes largely
to the wealthy. Did you and the committee consider how to mitigate the
damaging effects of the bond proposal on the poor and elderly?Did the thought even enter their
minds? If so, what were your conclusions?

In identifying overcrowding as a “critical”
problem, “you” give figures for the number of students a school was built
for, compared to the current number of students attending. Aren’t the
additional students being taught in portables, as is common practice
throughout the U.S.?

My calculations, if they are correct, indicate
that the current number of additional students over original capacity is
221 and that in this new school year the estimate will be about 246.
Leaving aside the number that could have been housed at Churchill (there
were 183 sixth graders there in 2002, and that was not the maximum
capacity), given that there are 395 unfilled spaces at the High School,
why couldn’t they go there?I
doubt that high schoolers will be flirting with elementary school
children, and apparently you think the same as you want to build an
elementary school next to the high school. The additional Middle School
students could be using Churchill if the school board hadn’t sold it.

What is responsible for this growth in the number
of students and when did it start?

Isn’t re-purposing Brooklyn Elementary as an early
learning center an expansion of the educational industrial complex and
attendant bureaucracy? Who is going to pay for it? (I think provision of
day care and health care by professionals could be a great social program,
but where is the money?)

Is it true that day care at the conceptualized
early learning center is only for staff and community partners and not the
rest of the community?

Doesn’t Head Start already have adequate space on
16th Street? If not, why aren’t they using Churchill School?

Isn’t it true that you can provide key card entry
and secure points of entry throughout the school system without building a
new Gr, 1-6 school?

You say that you are committed to preserving the
value that each school property brings to its respective neighborhood
within the larger community.What does that mean? The district shortsightedly sold (i.e.,
privatized) Churchill, a public asset, and it is now needed. It was resold
to an entrepreneur/”artist” that will use it to serve a fraction of the
community and some visitors. Is that what you mean?

The handout given out on one of your promotional
tours shows a budget estimate of $65,124,107 for Option 1, and an estimate
of $56,000,000 for option 2. What happened to the $48 million budget?

That’s all for now Mark.Thanks for reading, and I look forward
to your response.

Christopher Christie

Baker City

____________

SOMETHING ELSE TO THINK ABOUT

I
was listening to The Ralph Nader Radio Hour this last weekend and one
of Ralph's guests was Rosemary Gibson, "Senior Advisor at The Hastings
Center, which is the world’s first bioethics research institute, and she
is an editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association." She
was on to discuss her recent book, “China RX: Exposing the Risks for
America’s Dependence on China for Medicine,” about the unsettling fact
that the manufacture of the vast majority of the prescription drugs
taken by Americans has been taken over by China.

You
may recall that this is similar to China now having almost cornered the
market on rare earth elements that are used in electronics for
everything from cell phones to renewable energy to military
applications. After helping to drive it into bankruptcy, a Chinese
consortium purchased Americas largest rare earths mine, the Mountain
Pass Mine near Las Vegas, Nevada in 2017, leaving us more dependent on
China for these elements.

I'm not beating a drum
against China though. Government intervention could have saved both the
rare earths mine and the American drug manufacturing industry, but money
was apparently more important than national security.

“There
was country of origin labeling legislation put forward about ten years
ago, but it was immediately killed. And when I asked an industry person
to describe why that happened, this person said, “Well, the industry
probably thought it wouldn’t be good for their customers to know where
their medicines are being made.” And that’s because in a poll from the
Pew Trust, only 6% of Americans trust medicines made in China. So,
companies have good reason to hide it.” Rosemary Gibson, author
of “China Rx: Exposing the Risk of America’s Dependence on China for
Medicine.”
You can listen to or download download the Nader China Rx podcast by clicking this link and scrolling down the page.

Millions
of Americans are taking prescription drugs made in China and don’t know
it–and pharmaceutical companies are not eager to tell them. This is a
disturbing, well-researched wake-up call for improving the current
system of drug supply and manufacturing. Several decades ago,
penicillin, vitamin C, and many other prescription and over-the-counter
products were manufactured in the United States. But with the rise of
globalization, antibiotics, antidepressants, birth control pills, blood
pressure medicines, cancer drugs, among many others are made in China
and sold in the United States.

China’s
biggest impact on the US drug supply is making essential ingredients for
thousands of medicines found in American homes and used in hospital
intensive care units and operating rooms.

The
authors convincingly argue that there are at least two major problems
with this scenario. First, it is inherently risky for the United States
to become dependent on any one country as a source for vital medicines,
especially given the uncertainties of geopolitics. For example, if an
altercation in the South China Sea causes military personnel to be
wounded, doctors may rely upon medicines with essential ingredients made
by the adversary. Second, lapses in safety standards and quality
control in Chinese manufacturing are a risk. Citing the concerns of FDA
officials and insiders within the pharmaceutical industry, the authors
document incidents of illness and death caused by contaminated
medications that prompted reform.

This probing book examines the implications of our reliance on China on the quality and availability of vital medicines.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

This blog is intended to be a view of Baker City, Oregon, from the
perspective of the
disenfranchised, and taken-for-granted citizens of Baker City. Critiques
will
be generally aimed at the powerful and in many cases, the self-serving
hypocrites who run this
town, from the business people on our Disneyland Main Street, to the
subsidized
and catered-to flim-flams who take over our public assets and spaces
while
calling themselves "artists," to the monopoly electric co-op which
steals from the poor to feed the rich, and the golf course which does
likewise. Harsh, I know, but you would have to see them in action and
follow the tragic descent in the quality of people who run for City
Council, from self-dealing business people and artists, to drunks and
petty criminals, to understand the situation.

I'm just learning how to use the new format in this first blog, so I
thought I'd start by posting my last three letters to the editor about
our unregulated electric co-op, Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative.

Due to the inaction of the generally apathetic and intimidated members
of the co-op, the administrators and board have been able to pump up
their compensation while unfairly penalizing residential singles and
couples, including low income elderly, who conserve electricity, while benefiting irrigators and other
users of large amounts of electricity in the rural areas. In other
words, the co-op has been co-opted by a relatively few people to serve
their own interests.

The letters to the editor below are constrained by word limits imposed
by the newspaper editors, but in the future I intend to revisit them to
flesh them out. But for now, here they are:

January
22, 2018

Christopher
Christie

To
the Editor

Baker
City Herald

To
The Editor:

Oregon Trail Electric
Consumer’s Cooperative (OTEC) members and customers have experienced increases
in OTEC’smonthly “delivery
charge” on their monthly bill in recent years. In a little over 8 years,
accompanied by an impressive propaganda campaign, OTEC has raised this fixed
charge, the money you have to pay OTEC just to buy electricity, by almost 300
percent, from $10 to $29.50/mo, and they would like to raise it even higher.
Idaho Power’s monthly charge is $8 for Oregon residents and even less in Idaho.
Public Utilities Commissions in the various states tend to keep these monthly
delivery charges low and recover most delivery costs through a tiered rate
system based on usage and its benefits, but electric cooperatives are for the
most part unregulated monopolies that have little oversight from the Public
Utility Commission, so they get away with the practice.

OTEC constantly reminds
members of our low rate for electricity used, but figures from OTEC tell
another tale: because of our high delivery charge, more than half of OTEC
members would have a lower bill if they were with Idaho Power under its current
rate structure. That’s you if you average less than 1000 kWh a month.

Consumer
Reports commissioned a study of these fixed charges that indicated that higher
fixed charges are inequitable, increase the bills of low usage customers like
singles and elderly the most, and disproportionately impact the poor while
reducing incentives for energy efficiency.

There are expenditure changes
that could help lower fixed charges and OTEC member’s bills though.

Employee compensation would
be a good place to start as the top 8 employees took home $2,286,446 in
compensation and other benefits in 2016, skewed high by the $785,135 raked in by
exiting CEO Werner Buehler. The elected directors yearly take for 3 to 8 hours
of work a week varied from $16,100 to $26,250 with an hourly wage that ranged
from $71 to $103 per hour depending on the director.

Another place to look are
programs unrelated to OTEC’s purpose of providing power and assisting members
with their electricity infrastructure needs. OTEC spent $655,681on these
unrelated programs in the last 5 years.

Christopher Christie

Baker City

And:

March
16, 2018

Christopher
Christie

To
The Editor:

I
recently listened to a program host ridiculing controlled elections in the old
Soviet Union by saying they had to throw a party and serve food at the polling
stations to get anyone to vote. As an observer of OTEC's election process over
the years, I must say that the charade is similar, except that OTEC also bribes
members to vote with a $500.00 prize drawing. The bribes are understandable,
given the usual slate of incumbents and the obstacles OTEC has erected to keep
candidates from running.

OTEC's
4-month election period begins quietly with the appointment of a secretive,
elite "nominating committee," whose task is to determine if you are
"qualified" to run. They could actively reach out to members to find
potential candidates, but little if any effort is expended for that. Sometimes
a director retires early so that an insider can be appointed, giving them
incumbency status and a leg up in the next election. The result is that often
the only choices on the ballot are incumbents, but in one case where another
well-qualified candidate was in the race, important experience was left out of
his Ruralite profile.

The
bylaws allow additional nominations not less than 60 days prior to the annual
meeting if a member can get over the next hurdle which is to collect 50 member
signatures by petition before the end of the time period. Several years back,
there was a candidate who was told that nominations were closed even though the
nomination period was not over. He then had to go out and find 50 members to
sign a nominating petition to get on the ballot.

This year, if you were
unhappy with the incumbent candidates finally announced by OTEC in the March
Ruralite, you might have wanted to try and get 50 signatures to get on the
ballot. Too bad--you would have been out of luck, because the signed petitions
had to be submitted by February 20th, several days before the candidates were
even announced in Ruralite, and write-ins and nominations from the floor are
not allowed. Cooperative democracy in action!

Christopher Christie

Baker City

and:

August
24, 2018

Christopher
Christie

To
The Editor:

Someone
once noted that “the whole point of good propaganda” is that “You want to
create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, . . . Nobody knows what it
means, because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s crucial that it diverts your
attention from a question that does
mean something . . . .”

Which brings me to the recent
issue of OTEC’s Ruralite. Nestled
amongst articles on county fairs and funerals was an article offering slogans
aplenty and another highlighting the D.C. Youth Tour. These were meant to
burnish the reputation of OTEC as a community-minded citizen, but careful
reading reveals just empty slogans and half-truths.

The article “It’s a Matter of
Principles,” contained 7 warm and fuzzy headliner slogans, but I’ll concentrate
on the first: “The Power of Membership,” with translations along the way.

“local members call the
shots” = if you can get through all the obstacles for getting elected as a well
paid director, they will have to listen to you, otherwise forget it.

“We are accessible. You can
call or email us and know someone here is listening.” = of course they listen,
but they don’t have to respond, especially if you ask essential questions
pertaining to rate studies or employee compensation.

Directors “have only two
things in mind: . . . keeping the lights on and keeping costs affordable.” =
except for bloated administrative salaries and pet projects like sending
well-heeled teens to lobby in D.C., which despite OTEC’s repeated statements,
does affect rates. Every penny spent on pet projects could have been spent on
capital projects like substations.

Speaking of rates, OTEC’s
were not raised but Idaho Power’s residential rates decreased by 3.27%
recently, so many OTEC members would still be better off with Idaho Power.

As for my enquiries, OTEC
would not even provide crucial information needed to understand whether they
are treating all classes of ratepayers fairly or whether total compensation for
various positions is adequate or extravagant. So no, as a member you don’t call
the shots--your power is very limited. Looks like the uncooperative co-op to
me.

Christopher Christie

Baker City

I'll fill in more of the details later, because the letters to the
editor are constrained to 350 words, more or less, which is not
sufficient to convey an adequate understanding of any issue. In the last
letter I should have said most residential OTEC members would still be better off with Idaho Power.

Idaho Power is regulated to control costs and to bring rate
fairness--OTEC is not. It is a shame when we arrive at a place where
unregulated "cooperatives," which are intended to save users money
because they are non-profit, end up costing ratepayers more that what
they would pay at investor owned utilities. It is more of a shame when
they won't tell members where the money is going. You have to rely on
librarians and school teachers as board members to reign in the majority
of rancher and farmer board members, but unfortunately they are not up
to it, perhaps because they don't understand what is going on. The rates
are tilted in favor of the irrigators, other heavy users, and those who
live in the far-flung portions of the service areas at the expense of
city residents. In addition, the board members are more interested in
the public relations benefits of inventing special project give-aways
that benefit wealthy members at the expense of the poor, elderly and
single people who have no choice but to get their power from OTEC, than
they are in controlling costs. Unfortunately, there is little you can do
about it unless you can get on the board. There is no other electricity
provider for you to choose. That is what OTEC depends on--your
dependency! You have no choice.

Blog Archive

About Me

I am a nature photographer specializing in wildflowers, birds, and other criters.
Some of my wildflower and other photos can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherchristie/sets/
And
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?where-photographer=Christopher+Christie
These photos can be downloaded without charge for personal use and are used for educational purposes in the publications of many organizations, most often for free.
My professional training is in microbiology (BS Microbiology, Honors / Distinction in) and medical technology. I have worked as a microbiologist, medical technologist and Greyhound bus driver. In the late 1980's I grew over 100 native species in a small nursery. Besides identifying, photographing and growing native plants, I enjoy birdwatching, gardening and hiking in the Great Basin and local mountains. In the fall and winter, I used to do raptor counts along the Burnt River in the Hereford area for the East Cascade Bird Conservancy.